Agapéros A Harry Potter Epilogue
by Covante
Summary: 2 out of 2 Dentists surveyed agree that this is better than the epilogue you got at the end of a certain Book-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Not eactly the most ringing endorsement I could hope for but I'll take what I can get.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't make any claim of ownership over Harry Potter. This is written strictly for fun and not for profit. If you like this fic though feel free to use your imagination. ;)

Agapéros

A Harry Potter Epilogue

May 8th 1998

Hermione Granger was furious. No she was beyond furious, she was livid, no, incensed, no, incandescent with rage, yes that's the one; Hermione Granger was incandescent with rage. That stupid prat Harry Potter had run off on his own somewhere leaving only two brief notes to 'explain' why he was gone. One addressed to the Weasleys as a whole saying 'I can't stay here anymore.' and one to herself stating simply 'Sorry Hermione.' with a tear stain just below the 'm'. that was it seven sodding words spread across two sodding notes and off he trots to God knows where.

She knew he had been dealing poorly with the attention he'd been getting, all the scrutiny he was under, he'd always hated it. She knew he was going to get it and going to hate it before it happened; that didn't mean she had any more power to help him cope with it though. She knew he felt guilty that people had died fighting and being constantly congratulated on his 'Victory' would ring ever more hollow in his ears but she just didn't know how to help him with it. He'd had some sort of row with Ginny a few days ago and they hadn't so much as tolerated being in a room with each other since. Things with her and Ron had gone slightly better than that, well maybe anyway, the two of them had pretty much decided that they were better off as friends and were going to just let it remain that way and parted quite amiably. They'd forget the few sporadic kisses they'd shared and things would end before they'd even really begun. They both saw what lay in store for them in the not so distant future if they pursued a closer relationship, one where they couldn't just run away from each other and would instead resort to wounding each other more thoroughly. She'd been expecting Ron to blow up about it and for them to have a battle of stubborn wills, yay against nay, when she'd brought it up with him but he seemed oddly accepting of the whole idea and suspiciously quick to agree. It was almost like he was relieved she'd been the one to bring it up first; but that couldn't be right unless…

She wondered idly who it was. Luna maybe? Luna had always carried a fairly hefty torch for Ron. Apparently she'd never given up on the boy she'd shared her first kiss with at the tender age of seven. She indulged herself in a smile imagining how eight year old Ron would have reacted to that. Luna would definitely be preferable to Lavender at any rate. Luna wouldn't borrow the topaz and emerald pendant her parents had gotten her for her 17th birthday without asking first and even have the gall to wear it on a date with a boy she knew Hermione fancied. Worst case scenario Luna would pluck a couple radishes out the garden. Ron had shown rather a predilection for busty blondes, Rosmerta, Fleur, Lavender, she wondered where she fit the pattern for a moment but ah no matter. Luna was blonde and definitely wasn't lacking in the chest department.

She was getting off track though. Harry Potter had fled, with an infant in tow no less. Stupid irresponsible boy, he had maybe three hours total experience caring for a baby and he runs off by himself with one without even so much as a 'By your leave.' She knew he was upset, stressed to near the snapping point really. Paparazzi and suffocating crowds of people wanting to pump his hand and pat him on the back wherever he went and sad, sympathetic, pitying looks whenever he stayed. The poor boy couldn't get a moment's peace and he didn't seem to want to really talk to anyone, not to anyone at all, she frowned severely. He'd be cordial of course but she could tell the guilt was devouring him; with Tonks and Lupin deaths hitting him the worst. Seeing his baby Godson orphaned must be a heart-rendingly familiar scene for him.

Then that stupid murdering bastard had gone after Andromeda Tonks last night. When fate rained on Harry Potter it really did seem to dump buckets of shit. She'd been out with the Weasleys with Harry brooding away as was his custom, only George had been left with him and she was sure they'd been locked away in separate rooms, Harry unwilling to face any sort of public and George unable to face any sort of anything really. They'd returned to the Burrow to find Kingsley Shacklebolt there waiting for their return and gotten the story from him. He'd come here with Teddy not wanting to dump him in Ministry Child Housing and found Harry sitting at the kitchen table alone. Kingsley had told him what had happened and Harry had taken Teddy Lupin straight to the ministry, being the Man-Who-Won must have its advantages because despite being a seventeen year old bachelor the adoption had gone through before she and the Weasleys even made it back from Diagon Alley in time for a late lunch. Harry was gone leaving nothing but two painfully abrupt notes and a trail of tears in his wake. The worst part though had been the motive the man had given if you could find the generosity to call it that, "Bellatrix LeStrange killed my sister so I killed hers." What a stupid, pitiful, useless sack of shite. He couldn't even go after Narcissa Malfoy, Deatheather's wife; he had to go after the grieving widow who'd been ejected from her family over two decades previous. Stupid cowardly fuck. At least the bastard had enough of a tiny scrap of decency in him to no hurt Teddy. That was certainly the only reason he was still alive and Harry was missing instead of in a holding of his own awaiting trial for murder.

God why couldn't that stupid obstinate boy ever just talk to someone when he had a problem? Hadn't he had enough of running off to try and do things by himself? He bloody ate a killing curse the last time he left her! She let her head fall forward onto the table with a satisfying crack as the anger dissipated and the tears enveloped her once more.

August 1st 1998

Hermione had finally done it; she'd managed to track down her parents. It had two months of searching, the majority of that had been in Melbourne where she'd sent them but that search had turned up completely fruitless. She'd managed to find the café that Monica and Wendell Wilkins had leased and run together after only two weeks of looking but they had left the place shortly after arriving and then just flat disappeared.

She spent more than another month searching around the town for them then widened it to a national search for the Wilkins but that had turned up completely fruitless as well. The only thing she could find other than the shop rental was that they had deplaned at Melbourne Airport, not to be confused with Melbourne International Airport which for some stupid reason was in Florida. That had been an extra two days of Portkeying wasted right off the bat. She'd let herself get excited about making a direct trip and only having to puke her guts up the once; she should have realized she wouldn't be able to take a single jump all the way to Australia and ended up puking her guts up in Florida, back in London on the return, then Bombay, on to Darwin, and finally in Melbourne, _Australia _for real this time, she'd quadruple checked on departure and triple checked on arrival before the attendant got rude.

There was no trace of anyone she could find in Australia using the names Monica and Wendell Wilkins when she performed the scrying herself and she had resorted to going to the local Ministry in Sydney and having them perform their own national scrying to locate her wayward parents which had been not only exorbitantly expensive, for a foreigner looking for fellow foreigners, but also entirely without results. She had panicked of course sure that they had died or been discovered and taken and made a desperation bid and had them try to locate Robert and Helen Granger. She'd never been so relieved in her life, well maybe once before but she tried not to think about that day.

That was how Hermione found herself standing on Casuarina Street in Coconut Grove a suburb of Darwin, ironically enough less than two miles from where she'd first landed in Australia. She was here in front of the house her parents were living in. It was really a beautiful place; a lovely little suburb and the house they picked out had a direct view onto the beach and the Timor Sea, even if the beach was covered in some sort of scrubby bushes the water sparkled most invitingly in the noon sun and the air was clear and wonderfully salty, she'd always loved that smell. The only problem was that it was 90 degrees but thankfully wasn't too humid, she'd packed for what should have been winter in Melbourne with only this one skirt and tanktop she'd packed in case she had to layover in India longer than expected.

There was no car in the drive and no garage for it to be hiding in so she decided her parents must be at wherever they were working at now. She'd just take a little peek around then maybe dip off to find a café to loiter in while she waited for them to get back. She went around the back of the house and peered in the window and could feel her mouth fall open but didn't really have the motivation to close it. Whatever she'd been expecting to see in Australia _that _was most definitely not it.

A/N I liked the first bit in May but I'm not so sure about the second part in August. I think I ended up with less neurotic Hermione and more with some combination of Luna and the dog from Up! I'd like to know what you think. I wrote this story starting from the end (the last chapter is about 8k words words, already written and far more polished and relevant than this one) and just pounded this out tonight so I can get to the important bits that happen later on. There will be more coming, probably soon but I decided to put this bit of what is essentially backstory up now. I can't believe I'm uploading almost 2k words and only one set of quotation marks and they don't even go a real character. I feel so cheap. In conclus- SQUIRREL! :)


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't make any claim of ownership over Harry Potter. This is written strictly for fun and not for profit. If you like this fic though feel free to use your imagination. ;)

August 1st 1998

Whatever she'd been expecting to see in Australia _that _was most definitely not it.

Harry Potter was standing in her parents' living room. Actually he wasn't so much standing as he was swaying about; Hermione experienced a brief moment of incredulity that Harry Potter would be here of all places dancing of all things. It was then that she realized he was rocking a baby as he swayed around staring lovingly at the baby in his arms. '_Of course_,' she thought, '_Teddy._' She took a moment to just watch him sway and noticed he seemed to be mouthing something she couldn't hear, probably a lullaby. She wondered briefly why Harry had Teddy in a pink outfit but quickly pushed the thought from her mind as irrelevant.

She gave the window pane a quick rap of her knuckles and Harry looked up startled and instantly on guard, his wand pointed at her while he cradled the baby with just his left arm before she'd even registered his movement. Then a wash of realization spread over his features as he took in the sight of her, smiled warmly and pointed the wand over towards a door which she could hear click unlocked. He put his wand away and held up a finger to his lips before beckoning her in and walking out of her sight down a hall.

She stood frozen for a moment before she went over to the door and entered the house finding herself in a small entry way with a few pairs of shoes on the floor and only a short hall to her right with a wall in front and to the left. She kicked off her sandals and went down the short hall to the living room to see Harry coming back out into the room.

She took in the sight of him, something she'd been too distracted to do before. He'd developed a rather full tan at some point, something she'd never even seen a trace of on him before. His ever present round framed glasses were missing, assumedly replaced with contacts since he wasn't stumbling around, and his eyes were all the more vivid for it. He was also filling out his T-shirt quite a bit better than she remembered him having done, Harry Potter had definitely never had a chest before and his shoulders had broadened noticeably or maybe it was that he just wasn't slumped over constantly anymore. The black bird's nest he carried around on his head was still there though, some things will never change.

He walked over to her and warmly embraced her. She was startled for a moment, she couldn't, off the top of her head, think of a single time Harry had initiated a hug with her, before she broke from her stupor and proceeded to try and squeeze the life from him. She had been literally sick with worry over him but hadn't had any way of trying to find him once he was out of country, not without Hedwig. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to show up. Honestly Hermione," he pulled back a bit and winked at her but didn't let go, "it's been _months_!"

She just gawped stupidly at him, completely nonplussed. This Harry was nothing like she remembered; not only did he look better but even Harry at his best was never this… Playful? Ebullient? Bubbly? That's the one; Harry had never been bubbly, not even when he was eleven, he'd always been either shy and reserved or fiercely determined. She wasn't sure what was more surprising; that Harry was here standing in her parents' house or that she'd found him in such good spirits. She'd expected him to be withdrawn and moody at best and despondent at worst when he eventually showed back up at the Burrow after having time off on his own to brood.

He was staring at her, obviously expecting her to say something but she for the life of her couldn't think of anything. What do you say to your best friend who's been missing for nearly three months when you find him in your parents' hideout he shouldn't have even known existed? Seemingly deciding she wasn't currently capable of doing more than staring uselessly at him he leaned back in and tightened his embrace on her. "I've missed you Hermione. Only bad part about leaving Britain was being without you and the Weasleys." He pulled back from her again and met her eyes. "So you're looking well. How is everyone else?"

Shaking her head quickly Hermione took a moment to come back to herself. "The Weasleys are fine, upset you ran off of course, Mrs. Weasley's hair has started to grey, but they're fine. I left just a couple weeks after you so I'm not exactly current. Repairs on Hogwarts aren't going terribly quick, it'll probably open a month late." She pushed all of that out in a single burst eager to get it out of the way then planted her hands on his shoulders and cut into him. "Why did you have to leave like that? How did you get here? Why are you_ here_ of all places? Did you really have to take an infant with you? Didn't you realize how worried we would be? Didn't you care?"

She caught a glimmer of affront drift across his eyes at the last question before he firmed up and responded. "I was drowning in Britain Hermione, you must have seen that. You know I've always hated the attention, people staring or crowding around me wherever I go, flashbulbs constantly going off; everyone patting me on the back while the real heroes are in their graves, not even cold before they're pushed aside and forgotten!" He spat the last word then took a few steadying breaths to calm himself before continuing.

"What happened to Andromeda just pushed me too far; it was completely senseless, just needless. If I'd stayed I'm not sure what I would have done but it definitely wouldn't have been anything good. I had to get away from it all and there was no way I could leave Teddy there. You know who his closest blood relative is. If the Malfoys decided to take him, a blood traitor's half-blooded half-breed… That would make growing up at the Dursleys look like a 5-star resort. I'll not let that happen to him. Never." He was practically growling by this point, a tone that would be more expected from Teddy's birth father.

"You could have tried talking to someone though Harry; Mr. Weasley, McGonagall, me, someone, anyone. You didn't _have_ to just run away on your own."

"I did _have_ to leave Hermione. I had to escape."

"You didn't even tell us where you were going, didn't so much as breathe a word to anyone before you left. If my hair wasn't so ruddy thick I would have pulled it all out because of you!"

He looked guilty for a moment before he dropped his head and hid his face. "If I'd stopped to say goodbye I wouldn't have managed to leave. I left you a-" He was cut off by Hermione tackling him, which winded him as she connected rather low, right in his solar plexus, and then mounting him and pounding her fist on his chest.

"That's the point you bloody idiot!" _Thump_ "You should have stayed!" _Thump_ "I. We were all _sick_,"_ Thump_ "with worry over you! I ought to bludgeon you to death you stupid,"_ Thump_ "careless,"_ Thump_ "prat."_ Thump_. She punctuated herself with forceful strikes to his chest and shoulder.

"I'm sorry Hermione. I-"

_Thump_. "And that's another thing," she cut across him, "if you ever so much as _think_," _Thump_ "about leaving me again with nothing but such a piss poor excuse of a note I'll… I'll… Well you damn well won't like it that's for sure." She gave him one last hit before she let herself fall forward onto him, her anger quickly exhausted by his refusal to fight back against her.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"Language." She reached her hand up and cuffed him softly on the ear smiling despite herself, not that she let him see it of course.

"Prat. So much as try something like this again and you'll get more than vulgarity and bruises."

"I really am sorry Hermione but I just…" His voice trembled and he faltered. "I couldn't-"

"I know. You never have been very good at solving problems you couldn't knock unconscious. In the future do try and remember that's what you have me for and let me help. Please." She quietly added after a moment and felt him slowly nod into her shoulder.

She pulled a large and rather wet sounding breath through her nose, definitely not a sniffle, and sat up suddenly looking down the hall Harry had appeared from earlier. She saw that it led to a stairwell with a pair of closet doors on the left and a room with a lino floor on the right, the kitchen most likely. "Teddy must be a really deep sleeper if this racket hasn't woken him."

"He is, but not that deep. There is a one way silencing charm on the nursery; sound will come out but it won't go in."

"That's quite brilliant actually. How did you come up with it?"

He raised an eyebrow at her and she had the decency to blush. "I'll let you read the book later." He stated dryly.

She rolled fully off of him, stood up, smoother her skirt, and went over to a wingbacked chair. Harry got up and sat on the sofa across from her. "You still haven't explained how you got here, or why you're here of all places." She stated, ignoring the fact that her knocking him to the floor while pummeling and ranting at him could be considered a valid excuse for not having given her full disclosure yet.

He sighed and paused a bit to collect himself before starting. "Well when I left I didn't really know where I was going other than I was getting far away from Britain. First stop was the Ministry to sign the papers for Teddy's adoption, that surprisingly only took about an hour from in the door to back out of it. It's rather disconcerting that they'd just hand me a kid like that if I'm honest. The clerk's eyes just got wide and it was all of ten minutes consisting of, 'Of course sir. Please sign here and here sir. Will there be anything else sir?' Then it was Gringott's to get some pounds, you can't take a baby on a portkey so we were going muggle.

"We took a taxi to Heathrow from Charing Cross and that's about as far as I'd planned anything out. Stood staring at the departures board for a while but I've never been anywhere so I didn't have any idea what to pick. I saw a flight leaving in two hours for Sydney and decided if you'd send your parents to Australia then it must be a nice sort of place, and I knew they'd speak English." He shrugged like he thought it really was just that simple of a decision.

"Wait a minute. You just showed up at the airport and picked a flight to Australia because you figured I wouldn't send my mum and dad to a crappy country? Wait, do you even have a Passport?"

His eyes widened briefly before he nodded. "Pretty much yeah, the only references I have to places outside of Britain are places you or Ron have been on hols to and I don't speak French, Romanian, or Egyptian so all of those were right out. As for the Passport, well no not really. I had what I used as a Passport but it wasn't so much a real Passport as a…" He trailed off obviously nervous about telling her this part. "Well to be honest it was more like an address book I picked up at a muggle Stationery and put a confundus charm on." He finished, shying away from her a bit. His shoulder was bloody sore.

Surprising him she just laughed at the admission instead of scolding him. Poor girl had spent too much time with him and Ron; she'd been corrupted. "They speak Arabic in Egypt not Egyptian and that might just be the most half-arsed plan you've ever come up with. Keep in mind I'm including taking just Ron and Lockhart with you to fight a Basilisk on that list."

He looked slightly abashed. "What else could I have done? Take a boat? That wouldn't get me very far." He only lasted a few seconds under her withering glare before he nervously shifted. "What?"

"What? What do you mean what? You took a newborn and hopped on a plane to go halfway around the world without any real idea where you were going and _no_ idea of what you'd do once you got there on the basis of, 'Hermione wouldn't send her parents to some shithole of a country.' Are you insane?"

He just stared back at her darkly. "It's a damn sight better than anything I'd have ended up doing if I'd stayed. We made it here, we're both doing well, and we're very nicely settled in thanks for asking." They stared each other down for a tense minute before Hermione gave a sigh; he could tell that it was more exasperated than accepting though.

"Well that's how you got here to Australia. We're pretty far from Sydney though, that's like aiming for London and winding up in John O'Groats. So I'm guessing it's not just coincidence you're here right? Did you get bored and decide to ring my parents up or something?" She noticed him not meeting her eye. "Seriously Harry?"

He still wouldn't meet her eye. "Once you've seen that stacked up clam building in the harbor there's really not that much to do in Sydney and it's not as though I know anyone else here. I stayed there for about a week before I got restless and decided to look for your mum and dad; I was planning on just checking on them, making sure they were okay, then waiting about for you to show up and fix them. Knew you'd have to turn up here at some point. Two days later I was here and-"

"Two days! Two days? How the hell did you find them in two days? It took me two months!"

Harry just gave her a weird look. "Why would it take you two months? All I did was head over to the Ministry in Sydney and have them do a scrying; didn't take them much more than a minute to find this place. I really thought you'd have more security on their location than that. The two days was how long it took to drive up here; I'm pants at coordinate apparition."

Hermione found herself staring at him incredulously. "The security was all in the secrecy of their identities… Wait did the Ministry find them on the first go? What names did you have them look for?"

Harry looked a bit sheepish. "Yeah, first go. I'd kind of forgotten about that whole Montel and Wendy bit;" he shot her an annoyed look when she snorted at the name Wendy for some reason but kept on track, "I just remembered that you erased all knowledge of yourself and magic from their minds and sent them to Australia. Didn't remember that until I'd made it up here and talked to them. I wasn't expecting them to know me so I headed over to their practice," he noticed her questioning look; "they gave up being baristas," he paused long enough to roll his eyes at her, "and took dentistry back up after not even two months here.

"Anyway I walked into their practice to just discretely check in on them and your mum practically tackled me, sobbing then quickly shoved me out her way and started looking around rather frantically like I had you hidden in the corner or something, firing off questions all the while. Where you were, why you weren't with me, were you alright, what happened to you? She was rather distraught. They'd gotten their memories back in late March. They'd assumed with the charm broken and your best friend showing up alone that you'd…" He trailed off, not willing to give voice to that particular thought.

Hermione grimaced. "My death wouldn't have broken the charm; that was kind of the point of it; they wouldn't have to deal with losing me if something happened. I made sure to be clear about that. She shouldn't have been able to recognize you at all though; the only thing which would break the charm was seeing me, they'd recognize I was their daughter and everything would come back to them. Maybe they found a picture I missed, that shouldn't have been enough though; they were supposed to have to see me in person. I don't know where it could have gone wrong, how they might have been affected-" She looked up at him from her hands which were twining around each other nervously in her lap and saw him looking evasive. "You know don't you?"

"Hermione I'm not really sure I should be the one to tell you." He snuck a look up at the clock. "Your mum will be back in about an hour and a half and I think she should be the one to…" he saw the glare she was sending him, realized waiting any amount of time was not going to be an acceptable option for her, sighed and got up. "Wait here a minute alright?" He asked before getting up and walking down the hall.

Hermione watched him walk up the steps and wondered if he was just putting her off, she hadn't heard a baby stirring. If he wasn't just putting her off though he was getting something to show her, she tried to think of what it might be but was coming up blank, a photo album with a simple picture of her couldn't have broken the memory charm.

He'd been gone for a couple of minutes before she started getting antsy. If he made her chase him down he wasn't going to like it. She watched him come back down the stairs as soon as she'd finished that thought though. He sat back down across from her on the couch he'd been on before. He was once more cradling Teddy, still in his pink outfit.

"Hermione I have someone I'd like you to meet."

A/N A little better than last chapter I think. Now we are actually starting to get somewhere but we're not quite out of the exposition and into the good stuff yet. Hermione thankfully managed to shed her Lunaness in this one. So any guesses who Harry wants to introduce Hermione to?


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